


to the ghosts ( to the ones he could see, and the one he couldn't)

by EternalSinnedChild



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Child Abuse, Childhood Memories, Drabble, Drabbles, Drug Use, Flashbacks, Ghosts, I Tried, I havent posted a fanfic in years, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Nostalgia, One Shot, Original Character(s), Substance Abuse, Underage Substance Use, angsty, why now lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 12:10:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18135566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EternalSinnedChild/pseuds/EternalSinnedChild
Summary: He cared about the people closest to him.-In his childhood, Klaus came to understand that he could only see ghosts of those who died unsatisfied with their lives.





	to the ghosts ( to the ones he could see, and the one he couldn't)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I legitimately haven't written and posted a fanfic on these types of sites in over 6 years. Yee, lets hope I've gotten a bit better at writing.

As a kid, Klaus felt like he was a luckier Hargreeve. While his siblings only had each other for friendship, he had his ghosts to talk to. Sure, everyone looked at him weird, but he was happy to make that sacrifice for a few more friends.

 

Klaus used to be more tolerant of spirits when there used to be only nice ones surrounding him. He would chat with them, ask about their lives, and got their help for tricky homework problems. The home he lived in was really only haunted by older spirits, most of them died in their sleep near the area. They all talked about the loneliness they felt before the rested for a final time. Then he made the mistake of sneaking out of the house and wandering downtown at night. The ghosts were meaner and they died far younger with more brutal deaths than the ghosts he was used to at home. He never tried to talk to them, but they kept trying to talk to him.

 

When the sun started to rise, and the watch on his wrist read 5:00, he ran back home. Some mean-spirited ghosts right on his tail. In his bed, he could see them towering over him, angry and groaning. Even with his hands over his ears and head under his pillow, he couldn’t block them out.

 

News must have spread around the ghosts that there was a human that could hear them because, by the next night, his room was packed with ghosts all yelling for attention. Most of them were adults, so they were even louder than anyone else. The older spirits could only do so much to fend Klaus.

 

Over the next couple of weeks, he tried his best to tune them out. But they were too loud to ignore. With his sleepless nights, he learned that the only spirits who stayed on Earth where those who died unsatisfied.

 

He felt a little less lucky about his gift.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

He rarely saw child spirits, he wanted to see more ghost friends his age, but the thought most kids died satisfied and happy warmed him.

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every winter that rolls around, he remembers a small, 8-year-old girl with blue lips and fingerless gloves who followed him everywhere in his youth. She was probably the nicest and quietest child spirit he encountered, sort of reminded him of Vanya. She always spoke of stars and pretty sunsets she saw when looking out her bedroom window. She also spoke about a mother she loved, who colored her body with painful blues and purples, who told her to wait on the cold park bench while she shopped. She spoke about how she wished to apologize to her mother for wandering off hours after the sun had set and for sleeping in the playground structures. And how she woke up the next morning, trying to ask the big adults where her mom was, but none of them turned to help. She spoke of how excited she was when Klaus promised to help find her mom.

 

She thanked him and said how he reminded her of a brother she once had. Klaus felt happy for the first time in the longest time, he wasn’t a disappointment.

 

It wasn’t hard to find an article in the newspaper about a girl who died outside in the cold last week and a mother who was arrested for child abandonment and negligence. Sometimes he hated cruel adults. Every now and then the girl would ask about her mom, but he never told her that her mother was in prison or how the ‘kindness’ her mother gave her was just abuse. He never had the heart for it.

 

When he turned 14 and tried drugs for the first time, she whispered how he reminded her of her brother when he turned less nice and disappeared. An hour later, when he came down from the high, Klaus didn’t see her around. He didn’t know if she did actually say that in his ear, or if it was a false memory.

 

“ _She did whisper it._ ” The ghosts in his head said when he couldn’t find her after searching for hours.

 

He tried alcohol the next night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

The screaming got stronger, he couldn’t tell who was yelling at him anymore. Were they alive or dead? He tried more drugs, and in the haze, it got clearer.

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ben died at 20, it was bloody and messy, and Klaus wished he never saw the crime scene photos of the cut up body. He liked the image he had of Ben a week before when he was smiling in a magazine picture standing next to beautiful art piece he made. He liked that over the image of scattered body parts and dead eyes. Klaus really wishes he could forget that image, an image more terrifying than any ghost, he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget.

 

When he saw Ben’s ghost the first time, he refused to believe it was him. Klaus read about how sometimes people who grieve saw their dead loved ones in glimpses. He prayed, for the first time in a long time, that Ben wasn’t haunting the Earth, but a part of him knew that he was. He knew his brother hated himself, that he hated the monster that he held inside of him, and that he wished he could be normal. Klaus kept seeing the back of his ghost every now and then, and every time he did, he would turn the other way. He hoped that if he didn’t see Ben, his ghost wouldn’t be real, and he did die happy.

 

Ben did eventually get to him. Klaus woke up in the middle of a dingy alleyway and looked up to see Ben staring down at him. Ben looked like he wanted to cry, but he didn’t. They didn’t say anything to each other, they really didn’t need to.

 

He never asked why Ben looked like he wanted to cry back in the alley. His throat closed on him when he tried to talk. He never mentioned how he saw Ben wandering the city, well before Ben found him either. He didn’t think it was necessary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

All the nice spirits were starting to leave and only the annoying ones were sticking around. Ben’s presence was a nice change of pace, he distracted Klaus from all the screaming when he didn’t have enough drugs in his system to block it out himself.

 

-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vietnam.

 

 

Gunfire. Blood. So many dead. Children asking why. So much pain.

 

But he could hold on, he would survive.

 

Dave, dead.

 

And then he couldn’t.

 

 

 

 

Klaus wondered why he never saw Dave’s ghost after he died on the battlefield. A selfish part of him hoped he would show up. But his lover never did. He went home with a new weight and a new reason to drink.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-

 

Years later, Klaus would smile, remembering how Dave said that he felt more complete when they were together. And tears would fill his eyes when he realizes that he’s part of the reason why Dave died satisfied in the middle of a war.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I constantly make mistakes in my writing, if you see one, just comment. I'll fix it later!


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